The Conclave

The Ordos Majoris - Hobby, Painting and Modelling => Painting and Modelling => Topic started by: sergeis64 on September 21, 2009, 03:53:02 AM

Title: Scale comparison
Post by: sergeis64 on September 21, 2009, 03:53:02 AM
Hi all,
My buddy stopped by today and showed newly acquired figure from Eolith- Vampire hunter (?)
Very nice figure, but after placing her next to my Battle Sister ( coming soon with a PILE of accessories) I was a bit taken back- she is tiny in comparison. I modeled mine on Barbaretta and she is 54mm to the eye, beefy, armor wearing mama, so Vampire hunter looks a bit smallish, to say the least. I am usually solving a problem of height by extending arms, legs and torso- but this one is plastic and with a lot of small details that would a shame to lose in the process. My friend will try to mount her on an extra tall base- hopefully it will solve the issue somewhat.
Any experience in that matter?
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: Kaled on September 21, 2009, 07:04:48 AM
Yeah, she's not very tall - but then in real life there are people who aren't very tall either, so I wouldn't say it's a problem that some 54mm miniatures are tall and others are short.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: Adlan on September 21, 2009, 07:21:48 AM
She's not very tall. She'd be pretty petite in real life, but I like diversity in a model range. She dosn't look out of place imo, and she's well within human norm.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: greenstuff_gav on September 21, 2009, 08:56:08 AM
Plus SteveB's minis don't have GW's "exaggerated" proportions... all his girls look great together, thats the important bit!  ;D
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: MarcoSkoll on September 21, 2009, 02:26:43 PM
The model is meant to be short. Unless the character is expressly supposed to be tall, I'd leave it right where it is - people vary.

Anyway, I'll explain this. Personally, I use a scale of 10mm for one foot (or roughly 1/30) for GW's "54mm" models. Given their models are typically about 57 mm tall, that works well with the human male average of 5' 9".

So that means that when I'm actually finished with sculpting my models, they'll range from the ~62mm tall Marco (6' 2"), to the ~50 mm tall Frost (5' 0.5") with other characters filling in the range in between. I deliberately do my characters across the height range - and account for the typical height difference for the sexes, meaning my female models (when they're done) will be about 3mm shorter on average.

Anyway, the 52mm Vampire Hunter represents about a 5' 2.5" model. Pretty normal for a woman actually (actually less than one standard deviation below the average, so very normal to be brutally honest). The issue is more likely to be that your Battle Sister (at probably about 5' 9", about 1.7 SDs above the average) is a bad example to compare to.

To explain Standard Deviation briefly, it's a measure of how close most of the data is to the mean. With a normal distribution (which height largely follows) you can expect 68% of the values to sit within 1 SD (3" in men, 2.5" in women) of the mean, 95% of the values to sit within 2 SDs, 99.7% of the values to sit within 3 SDs and 99.99% to sit within 4 SDs.

That covers values both above and below the mean. Anyway, the fact is, two thirds of women (at least by the UK average) are between 5' 2" and 5' 7" - where as women above 5' 8" are a 1 in 20 case. In other words, the Vampire Hunter is MORE normal than your battle sister.

GW didn't do this with their models. Justifiably of course, because it would have made mixing parts between models a bigger issue.
But just because GW didn't do it, doesn't mean it's something to worry about.

Of course, if you really want her to be taller, then go with it. But she's not wrong.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: sergeis64 on September 21, 2009, 09:59:17 PM
@Marco- I do agree with you on the above points. Certainly nothing wrong with a petite female - especially that well done by Steve. "Futurizing" her might be a small problem due to incompatibility with HUGE GW weapons- but there are some that are not over sized. Usually 54mm counts to the eye, not to top of the head- since that will vary greatly in some cases. Thanks for input.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: Ynek on September 21, 2009, 10:33:07 PM
One thing that I've found in my own sculpts is that they always either end up in proportion, or in scale. I've always had a bit of bother getting them to be good on both counts. However, with practice, I have been improving.

As far as "futurising" the vampire hunter goes, I actually find that for the more petite models, 40k weapons actually fit a whole lot better than Inq. ones. By cutting the foregrip off of a 40k lasgun and reattaching the barrel to the body of the weapon with a dab of glue, you can make a small laspistol which works quite well on the more petite frames of models such as the death cultists.

Failing that, you could always do what I do and make a weapon out of plasticard and tubing... It's really not that difficult.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: Adlan on September 22, 2009, 01:49:18 PM
Well, I'll post up my attempt at futurising her as soon as I can borrow a decent camera. I find I bonic Eye always brings you into the 41st millenia, but I couldn't bring myself to spoil her face.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: RobSkib on September 22, 2009, 03:49:32 PM
Shoulderpads too - big, big shoulderpads!
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: Hadriel Caine on September 22, 2009, 05:14:52 PM
the man has a point. shouldn't be able to distinguish them from a set of walking pauldrons.
Title: Re: Scale comparison
Post by: MarcoSkoll on September 22, 2009, 09:42:29 PM
Quote from: sergeis64 on September 21, 2009, 09:59:17 PMUsually 54mm counts to the eye, not to top of the head- since that will vary greatly in some cases.
Which would be why I use a 1/30 scale, based on an overall height of about 57-58mm (ignoring wacky hair styles), not the typical 54mm scale of 1/32.

Even with odd head/hair shapes, you can still figure it with guestimation or simply working from typical body proportions.